It must have been more than a week after my long talk with Conductor Lickrod that I was sitting one evening in the hotel with Mr. Johnson and a certain Francarian gentleman to whom he had introduced me, when the latter made a suggestion that has since proved very useful to me. Mr. Villele the Francarian is a short and rather stout man of middle age, with a pair of merry black eyes, a swarthy complexion, and dark hair beginning to turn grey. He professes to find Meccania and the Meccanians amusing, but I suspect from the nature of his sarcasms that he entertains a deep hatred of them. We were talking of my journal when he said, “And what is the use of it?”

“Well,” I said, “I do not flatter myself that I can produce a great literary work, but the facts I have been able to place on record are so interesting in themselves that I believe my countrymen would welcome a plain straightforward account of my visit to this most extraordinary country.”

“I have heard,” he said, “that the Chinese have very good verbal memories. Have you committed your record to memory in its entirety?”

“Why should I?” I replied; “it is to save my memory that I am taking the trouble of making such full notes, even of such things as conversations.”

“And how do you propose to get your journal out of the country?”

“I propose to take it with me when I return,” I said.

At this he turned to Johnson and laughed, but immediately apologised for his apparent rudeness.

“And what about the Censor?” he asked.

“Surely,” I replied, “these people take such precautions not to let us foreigners see anything they do not want us to see, that they cannot object to a faithful record being made of what they do permit us to see!”

“Then you have not even read Regulation 79 of the Law concerning Foreign Observers.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“Simply that foreigners are not allowed to take out of the country anything they have not been permitted to bring in, except with the consent of the Chief Inspector of Foreign Observers.”

“And you think they will object?”

“I have not the slightest doubt.”

“But it is written partly in Chinese; they would have to translate it.”

“All the more reason for detaining it. If you ever get it again, it will be in a few years, after it has been translated for the benefit of the Sociological Section of the Ministry of Culture.”

“What do you advise me to do, then?” I asked.

“Have you any friends at the Chinese Embassy?” he asked.

“I have no personal friends. At least I have not troubled to inquire. I have had no business at the Embassy; there seemed no reason why I should trouble them.”

“There is a fellow-countryman of yours here in Mecco who is persona grata with the Authorities,” said Villele, “but he is rather a dark horse.”

“A dark horse?” I said.

“He is a sort of convert to Meccanianism. He has written books in appreciation of Meccanian principles, Meccanian ideals, Meccanian institutions, and so forth. They are eagerly read by the Meccanians. They even use them in their colleges. I have read them, and they seem to me very clever indeed. I translated them for the benefit of my countrymen, and I am not exactly an admirer of things Meccanian.”

I must have looked rather puzzled, for Mr. Johnson came to my rescue.

“Mr. Villele means,” he said, “that these books have a double meaning. I have read one of them. Under cover of the most exuberant flattery he gives such an impression of the cold-blooded devilishness of the system, that some of us suspect his real purpose to be that of exposing the whole business.”

“He knows more of Meccania than anyone who is not a high official,” said Villele; “and if you want to pursue your investigations any further, and incidentally get your manuscript conveyed out of the country, I should advise you to seek an interview with him.”

“Will that be possible,” I asked, “without arousing suspicion?”

“Oh, quite easily,” answered Villele. “He is above suspicion, if you are not,” he added, smiling. “He holds a weekly salon for foreigners, and you can easily get permission to attend. After that I leave it to you, and him.”

That evening we went on talking a long time. Mr. Villele related some remarkable things, but I was not sure whether he was merely making fun of the Meccanians.

“You have not seen much of the Meccanian women?” he remarked.

“No,” I said; “I have had no opportunity.”

“They are quite as wonderful as the men,” he said. “You never heard, for instance, of the great Emancipation Act, Regulation 19 of the Marital Law?”

“No,” I replied; “what is it?”

“No Meccanian woman is obliged to submit to the embraces of her lawful husband.”

“But how did the men ever consent to such a law?” I asked; “for in this country it is the men who make the laws.”

“It is rather a queer story,” he replied. “It is quite a long time ago, forty years or more, since a movement arose among the women, influenced no doubt by the women’s movement in Europe, which had for its object, or one of its objects, greater freedom from the domestic tyranny of the Meccanian husband. Some of them, of course, thought that the way to secure everything they wanted was to get the right to vote for the National Council; but the wiser among them saw that the vote was merely a bad joke. Anybody could have the vote, because it was worth nothing; seeing that the powers of the representatives were being reduced to nothing. All the same, this women’s movement, such as it was, was the nearest approach to a revolutionary movement that the Meccanians have ever shown themselves capable of. Once more our dear old Prince Mechow came to the rescue. He was a real genius.”

“But I thought you did not admire the Mechow reforms?” I interrupted.

“I do not; but I recognise a genius when I see him. Believe me, Prince Mechow was the first Meccanian to understand his countrymen. He knew exactly what they wanted, what they would stand, what they could do, what they could be made to believe. He was absorbed in his early reforms when this women’s movement broke out, and some people were afraid of it. He attacked the problem in his characteristic fashion. He knew the women didn’t want political power; he knew also that there was not the slightest danger of them getting it; but he saw immense possibilities in having the women as his allies in certain of his reforms, especially his Eugenic reforms. He hit upon a really brilliant idea. I don’t suppose you can guess what it was?”

“How can I?” I said. “All this is quite new to me.”

“Well, if you had read Meccanian literature, or even the writings of the old travellers in Meccania—your predecessors as Foreign Observers—you would know that the Meccanian women are the most primitive in Europe. They have one ideal as regards men. They have a superstitious admiration for physical strength. If a Meccanian woman were really free to choose her mate, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she would choose the strongest man. They have always been like that. Probably many primitive peoples have had that characteristic, but the Meccanians have preserved that trait longest. You think I am joking or spinning a theory?”

“I was thinking that as they have had the same marriage laws as the rest of Europe for many centuries, the fact, if it is a fact, cannot be of much practical importance,” I said.

“The fact itself is vouched for by dozens of writers among the Meccanians. They pride themselves on having preserved these primitive characteristics; they glory in never having been influenced by Latin culture. The marriage laws you speak of have been adopted by the men, in self-defence, so to speak. In very early times the Meccanian marriage laws were essentially the same as they have been for two thousand years, and the penalties on the women for infractions of the marriage laws were more severe in practice than in any other country. Notice the facts: breaches of the ‘moral code’ before marriage are regarded very lightly: illegitimacy in Meccania, as is proved by statistics, was more prevalent than in most countries; but the men took care that breaches after marriage should be severely dealt with. I told you it was a long story, and I have not yet come to the point. For twenty or thirty years before Prince Mechow got into the saddle all the young hot-headed Meccanian patriots got Eugenics on the brain, but none of them knew how to put their ideas into practice. Mechow himself was a Eugenist of the most brutal type. He believed that if he could once utilise this primitive instinct of the Meccanian women, he could do something much more effective than eliminating certain feeble types, which was all that the Eugenist theorists had so far aimed at. He proposed to give every woman the right to choose, within limits, the father of her children. He knew that all the Meccanian women were obsessed with a frantic admiration for the Military Class—in the old days it was the ambition of every woman to marry an officer, and that was why the officers who were not well-to-do never had any difficulty in getting a rich partie. Well, he actually made a law to the effect that any woman could claim a sort of exemption from the marital rights of her husband, upon the recommendation of an authorised medical man.”

“But why on earth did the men consent to such a law?” I asked once more.

“That was easily done. You had only to invoke the Meccanian spirit, devotion to the supreme interests of the State, the opinion of the experts and all the rest of it. The opposition was stifled. The three highest classes were all for it; the women supported it, and although they had no political power they made opposition impossible.”

“And what effect has this law had? I am afraid I do not see how it would effect the purpose Prince Mechow had in view,” I said.

“The consequences have been enormous. I do not mean that the law by itself effected much, but taken as part of a system it solved the whole problem from Mechow’s point of view.”

“But how?” I asked, somewhat puzzled.

“You understand, I suppose, the system of medical inspection and medical supervision and medical treatment?”

“To a certain extent,” I replied.

“Well, you realise perhaps that, in the hands of a patriotic medical staff, the system can be so worked that every woman who is ‘approved’ can be provided with a ‘eugenic’ mate from an approved panel, drawn chiefly from the Military Class, eh?”

“Is this one of Mr. Villele’s jokes at the expense of the Meccanians?” I asked Mr. Johnson.

“He is telling the story in his own way,” answered Johnson, “but in substance it is quite true.”

“But it sounds incredible,” I said. “What do the husbands say to it?”

“Oh, the business is done very quietly. A woman is ordered a ‘cure’ by the ‘medical authority,’ and she goes away for a little time. The men on the panel are kept in training, like pugilists used to be. As for the husbands—did you ever attend any lectures in the Universities on Meccanian ethics? Of course you have not been in the country very long. Jealousy is regarded as an obsolete virtue, or vice, whichever you like. Besides, you must not imagine the custom affects large numbers. Probably not more than 10 per cent of the women, chiefly in the Fifth and Sixth, and to some extent in the Fourth, Class, are affected.”

“But I should have thought that social caste would be an insuperable obstacle,” I said.

“Surely not! When did you hear that women were chosen for such purposes from any particular class? It is not a question of marriage.”

“There is one circumstance,” interposed Mr. Johnson, “that has some bearing on this subject. Domestic life in Meccania for generations past has been based on quite a different ideal from that prevalent in other parts of Europe. A Meccanian in the old days used to choose a wife very much as he would choose a horse. She was thought of as the mother of children; in fact, the Meccanian sociologists used to maintain that this was one of the marks of their superiority over other European nations. Conjugal affection was recognised only as a sort of by-product of marriage. Of course they always pretended to cultivate a kind of Romanticism because they wrote a lot of verse about the spring, and moonlight and kisses and love-longing, but their Romanticism never went beyond that. As the object of Meccanian sentiment, one person would do just as well as another.”

“Our friend seems very much surprised at many things he finds in Meccania,” remarked Mr. Villele, “and my own countrymen, and more especially my own countrywomen, only half believe the accounts they read about this country, simply because they think human nature is the same everywhere; but then they are ignorant of history. Civilisations just as extraordinary have existed in ancient times, created through the influence of a few dominant ideas. The Meccanians are a primitive people with a mechanical culture. They have never been civilised, because they have no conception of an individual soul. Consequently they find it easy to devote themselves to a common purpose.”

The conversation went on for a long time. It was a warm summer evening and we were sitting in the garden at the back of the hotel, otherwise we should have been rather more guarded in our remarks. As we parted, Mr. Villele repeated his advice to seek an interview with Mr. Kwang, as he called him. (His name was Sz-ma-Kwang, but for convenience I shall allude to him as Mr. Kwang.) A day or two later, I contrived to get an interview with him, and although Conductor Lickrod was present I soon discovered that Mr. Kwang and I were members of the same secret society. He promised that I should see him again before long, and that he would be happy to assist me in any way he could. He told Lickrod that he had been doing his best, for the last five years, to induce the Chinese Government to send more ‘observers’ to Meccania; but his enthusiasm for Meccania had perhaps defeated its own object, as it caused him to be mistrusted. His writings on Meccania were well known, and it was thought that he was trying to proselytise. He spoke most flatteringly of me to Lickrod, and said that, in view of the influence I should have in my own country, it was well worth while giving me every facility to see all I wished. He would guarantee that, under his tutelage, I should soon learn to appreciate things from the right point of view.

Two days after this, I received a message to call on the Chief Inspector of Foreigners. He received me most politely, and almost apologised for not having had time to see me before. He had only just learnt that I was a friend of the excellent Mr. Kwang. He said I should be permitted to visit Mr. Kwang whenever I chose, and that I was now at liberty to make use of the letters of introduction I had brought with me to several persons in Meccania. It would not be necessary for me to be accompanied by a ‘conductor’ every day. He would transfer me to Class B, Stage II. Class B meant Foreign Observers staying not less than six months; and Stage II. meant that they were permitted to submit a plan each week showing how they proposed to spend the following week; so that on the days which were occupied to the satisfaction of the Inspector of Foreign Observers for the district, the services of a ‘conductor’ could be dispensed with.

I did not know whether to avail myself of my new-found liberty or not. For when I came to talk the matter over with the only person at hand, Conductor Lickrod, I found that it was not very easy to prepare a plan that would be accepted by the Authorities, unless I were prepared to pursue some definite line of research. When I talked of taking a few walks in the poorer quarters, calling in for a few lectures in the University, hearing some concerts, and seeing some plays and other amusements, looking round the museums,—a programme innocent enough in all conscience,—Lickrod said no Inspector would sanction such a miscellaneous time-table for an observer in Stage II. I was not qualified to attend concerts; I had not yet received permission to visit the theatre. Unless I were pursuing some particular study, I could only visit the museums in company with a conductor. As for a stroll through the poorer quarters, he failed to see the object of that. On the whole, I decided to stick to Lickrod for another week at any rate. I asked if I might see something of Education in Mecco. He said certainly, if I desired to make a study of Meccanian Pedagogics for a period of not less than four months. Otherwise it would not be possible to enter any of the educational institutions. I could get permission to read in the Great Library, if I would specify the subject, or subjects, and show that I was qualified to pursue them. In that way I could read up Meccanian Education. If I were not willing to do this, he advised me to talk to Mr. Johnson, who was a keen and capable student of Meccanian Pedagogics.

I suggested investigating Meccanian political institutions, but similar difficulties arose there. I could only study Meccanian politics if I were registered as a specialist, and for that I should have to obtain permission from the Department for Foreign Affairs as well as from the Chief Inspector of Foreign Observers. He remarked, however, that in his opinion there was little to study beyond what could be got from books. The political system of Meccania was really simplicity itself when once the fundamental principles had been grasped. I replied that in most countries it took a foreigner rather a long time to understand the views and policy of the many different groups and sections in the representative assemblies. Each of them usually had their organisations and their special point of view. He replied that in Meccania the State itself was the only political organisation.

“But,” I said, “when your members of the National Council meet, do they not fall into groups according to their views upon policy?”

“They are grouped according to classes, of course,” he answered. “Each of the seven classes has the same number of representatives, and there is no doubt a tendency for the representatives of each class to consider things somewhat from the point of view of the interests of their class. But the members have no meetings, except in the full assembly and in the committees. Such group-meetings form no part of the Constitution. We do not do things by halves. When the State decided to have nothing to do with party government, it decided also not to have anything to do with group government. There is no room for such trifling in Meccania. So you see there is nothing for you to investigate in this direction.”

“The classes themselves, then? Is there no body of opinion, no collective political tradition or sentiment cultivated by the various classes?”

“You might find something there,” said Lickrod, musing a little. “But except in the shape of books I do not know how you would get at it.”

“But all books are censored, are they not?” I said.

“Certainly, but how does that affect the question?”

“Books would hardly give me a truthful idea of all the currents of thought.”

“But surely you cannot suppose that the State would assist you in trying to discover things which, by its deliberate action, it had already thought it desirable to suppress?” he answered. “Besides,” he added, “such things belong rather to the pathology of politics. By the way, you would find some useful matter in Doctor Squelcher’s great work on Political Pathology.”

“That is a new term to me,” I said.

“Doctor Squelcher’s researches have proved invaluable to the Special Medical Board in connection with the disease Znednettlapseiwz (Chronic tendency to Dissent) which you also had not heard of.”

In view of this conversation my attempt to investigate Meccanian politics did not seem likely to meet with much success.

Before seeing Mr. Kwang again, I received an invitation to dine with a certain Industrial Director Blobber, one of the persons to whom I had a letter of introduction. He lived in a very pleasant villa in the Third Quarter, and as it was the first time I had had an opportunity of seeing the interior of any private mÉnage, I was naturally rather curious to observe everything in the house. The door was opened by a servant in a livery of grey. The hall was spotlessly clean, and decorated in yellow tones, to indicate the class to which my host belonged. I was shown into what I took to be a drawing-room, the prevailing tone of which was also yellow. The first thing that struck me was the peculiar construction of the easy chairs in the room. They were all fitted with mechanical contrivances which enabled them to be adjusted in any position. At first I thought they were invalids’ chairs, but they were all alike. The other furniture suggested the latest phases of Meccanian decorative Art, but it would be tedious to describe it in detail. The frieze was decorated with a curious geometrical design executed in the seven colours. There were silk hangings which at first I took to be Chinese, but which I soon saw were imitations. The carpet had the Imperial arms woven in the centre. It seems it is one of the privileges of officials of the Third Class to have the Imperial arms as a decoration on certain articles of furniture; only members of the Second and First Classes may have their own arms. The mantelpiece was large and clumsy. A bust of the reigning Emperor stood on one side and one of Prince Mechow on the other.

Mr. Blobber joined me in a few minutes. He was dressed in a lounge suit of bright yellow with green buttons. (The buttons indicated that he had been promoted from the Fourth Class.) He was polite, in a condescending sort of way, and spoke to me as if I had been a child. He was a foot taller than I am, and decidedly portly in build. He had a red face, a rather lumpy nose and a large bald forehead. He wore spectacles and was decorated with the ‘Mechow’ beard, which he not only stroked but combed in my presence.

After the first formal greetings, he said, “So you have come all the way from the other side of the world to see our wonderful country. You had all the countries in the world to choose from, and you had the good sense to come to Meccania. You decided well, and I hope you have been profiting by your stay.”

“Yes,” I said; “I have seen a great many things to admire already.”

“For example?” he said.

“The wonderful roof of your Great Central Station,” I said.

“Ah, yes unique, is it not? We have, of course, the finest railway stations in the world, and the finest railway system too. But that is only part of our industrial organisation.”

“You have indeed a wonderful industrial system,” I said, “and no industrial problem.”

“No industrial problem?” he replied. “We have a great many. We do not produce half enough. Of course, compared with other countries, it may seem that we are doing very well, but we are not satisfied.”

“I meant rather that you have no disturbances, no strikes, no Trade Unionism or anything of that sort.”

“Of course, you cannot help thinking of what you have seen in other countries. No, we have no time for nonsense of that kind. But I take no interest in that sort of thing. I have enough to do with my work. The chief Director of the Imperial Porcelain Factory is a busy man, I assure you.”

At this moment Madame Blobber came in and I was introduced to her. She was a great contrast to her husband in many ways. She was tall and rather thin—at any rate for a Meccanian—and would have been graceful but for a certain stiffness and coldness in her manner and bearing. She had a pale face with cold blue eyes. Her mouth was rather large, and her lips thin and flexible. While her husband’s voice was leathery, like that of most Meccanians, hers was thin and penetrating, but not loud. We crossed into the dining-room. A butler in a chocolate-coloured livery saw that all was in order, and left the room. Waiting was unnecessary. The first dishes were on the table, where they were kept hot by electricity, and others on the sideboard were afterwards handed by a woman servant in a grey uniform.

It was a rather silent meal. Mr. Blobber was much occupied with his food, which he evidently enjoyed, and at a later stage he relapsed into a sleepy condition. Madame Blobber then took the lead in the conversation. She was evidently a very well-read woman, especially in all matters relating to Art. I suspected she had no children and had made herself a blue-stocking. She talked like a professor, and with all the dogmatism of one. She said the Chinese had never had any true knowledge of colour. They had merely hit upon some colours which were pleasing to a crude taste. The Meccanians in fifty years had absorbed all the knowledge the Chinese had ever possessed, and much more besides.

I ventured to say that there were still some secrets of artistic production in porcelain that foreigners had not discovered. She laughed at the idea. The ‘secrets,’ she said, were the very things the Meccanian experts had rejected as of no value. I might as well say that the Chinese political constitution was a secret because the Meccanians had not adopted it. When I suggested that scientific knowledge was not a complete equipment for Art, and would not necessarily increase the artistic powers of a nation, she said this was a mere superstition. Art was not a mystery. Every work of art admitted of being analysed; the laws of its production were ascertainable; and it could be reproduced or modified in every conceivable way.

I asked if the same were true of music. I had heard, I said, that for nearly a hundred years even the Meccanians had produced no great musician.

“Another superstition,” she declared. “The great musicians, as they were called, were merely the pioneers of music. Their works were much overrated in foreign countries. We have proved by analysis,” she said, “that they were merely groping for their effects. We know what they wanted to effect, and we have discovered how to get those effects. Musical psychology was an unknown science a hundred years ago. Why, the old composers had simply no means of testing the psychological effects of their works by experiment.”

“I am afraid I am very ignorant of musical science,” I said. “In fact, I did not even know there was such a thing as a science of music.”

“What did you think music was?” she almost snapped.

“Simply one of the Arts,” I said.

“There can be no art in the proper sense without a science.”

“But I thought you Europeans considered that in Sculpture, for example, the Ancients had never been surpassed; and yet they had no science of sculpture.”

“Their science was probably lost: but we have recovered the true science. The basis of all sculpture is accurate measurement. Whatever has bulk, whatever occupies space, can be measured, if your instruments are fine enough. Our instruments are fine enough. We can reproduce any statue ever made by any artist.”

“But that is only copying,” I said. “How do you create?”

“The process is a little more elaborate, but the principles are exactly the same. Even the classical sculptors had models, had they not? Well, our sculptors also use models; they pose them in thousands of different positions until they have the attitude they want; they have instruments to enable them to fix them in position, and the rest is merely accurate measurement.”

“I should never have imagined that sculpture had been carried to such a point,” I remarked. “Is there much of it in Meccania?”

“Not a great deal of the finer work. Accurate measurement is a slow and costly business even with our improved instruments.”

“Tell me,” I said,—“you see I am very ignorant of Art as understood in Meccania,—has Literature been pursued by the same scientific methods?”

“It depends upon what you mean by Literature,” replied Madame Blobber.

“Broadly speaking,” I said, “I mean the art of expressing ideas in language that satisfies one’s sense of beauty.”

“All our professional writers go through a period of training in the particular department they cultivate. For example, our writers of history are very carefully trained, writers of scientific treatises also.”

“But what of your novelists and poets?” I asked.

“We do not specially encourage the writing of novels. All stories are merely variations of a few themes: all the stories worth writing have been written long ago. We print a certain number of the old novels, and we employ a few specialists to ‘vamp’ up new stories from the old materials, chiefly for the benefit of the lower classes. We Meccanians never really took to novel-writing, except under foreign influence, and that passed away long ago. The theme of almost all novels is domestic life and individual passion: they treat of phases of thought and feeling that our Culture tends more and more to make obsolete. We have developed the Drama much more; in fact, the drama takes the place of the novel with us.”

“I have heard something of your Drama from Dr. Dodderer,” I said.

“Indeed! Then you understand the fourfold treatment. That in itself would explain why we have discarded the novel. We still keep up the philosophical parable, which is a sort of link between the novel and our modern drama.”

“I am afraid I should find it difficult to appreciate some of your plays,” I said; “Uric Acid, for instance.”

“That is only because our mental environment is in advance of the rest of Europe. Physical science, including of course medical science, is part of our mental furniture: we have assimilated whole masses of ideas that are still unfamiliar to other peoples. Naturally our drama finds its material in the affairs that interest us.”

“And Poetry?” I said. “Is Poetry still cultivated?”

“Naturally! Most of our dramas are in poetry: our language lends itself admirably; it is almost as easy to write poetry as prose in our language.”

“But is there no lyrical poetry?”

“Certainly; we utilise it as one of the means of cultivating the Meccanian spirit, especially among the young. No poetry is published unless it contributes to the uplifting of the Meccanian spirit.”

At this point Director Blobber woke up and proposed that we should retire to his study for a glass of spirits and a cigar. Madame Blobber left us, and for the next half-hour I did my best to keep Mr. Blobber awake. But it was evident he wanted to go to bed, and by half-past nine I left the house, without any desire to see either of my hosts again.

Two days later I received another invitation, this time to dine with an Under-Secretary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I had not presented any letters of introduction to him. I could therefore only suspect that this invitation was in some way due to Mr. Kwang. I went, of course; but I could hardly help wondering what was in store for me. Under-Secretary Count Krafft belonged to one of the great families and wore the uniform of the Second Class, with a badge to indicate that he was now in the Civil Service, although of course he had served as an officer in the army. His wife was apparently dining elsewhere, for I saw no sign of her, and we dined tÊte-À-tÊte in a small apartment in his large mansion in the Second Quarter. He was much more a man of the world than the others I had met, and in his manners resembled the men of good family whom I had met in Luniland. After a short preliminary talk, about nothing in particular, he said he was sorry that he had not learnt of my presence in Mecco when I first arrived, particularly as I was a friend of Mr. Kwang.

“The applications from foreigners for permission to travel in Meccania,” he said, by way of apology, “are not very numerous, and they are always referred to me for my signature. Yours reached us from Luniland, and was regarded as that of a mere globe-trotter. It is a pity you did not give the name of your friend, Mr. Kwang, as a reference. We think very highly of Mr. Kwang, and I should be pleased to give special facilities to any of his friends. I don’t suppose you have been neglected,” he added; “our officials have instructions to pay attention to the comfort of all Foreign Observers, and I am sure we do more for them than any Government I am acquainted with.”

We were by this time about half-way through dinner, and under its influence I ventured upon a mild joke.

“You do everything for them,” I said, “except leave them alone.”

He took this in good part.

“You have been in Luniland,” he remarked, “where every one does what he pleases. When you have spent as long a time here you will appreciate the wisdom of our arrangements. No doubt it seems a little irksome at first, and perhaps rather dull, especially as you have seen only the mere routine aspects of the life of the lower and middle classes—I use the old-fashioned terms, you see. But how else would you arrange matters? We cannot invite all foreign visitors, indiscriminately, to take part in our higher social life, and it would not be fair to our own citizens to allow foreigners a greater liberty than we allow to ourselves.”

“So you put us in a strait-jacket,” I said, laughing, “because you have to put your whole nation in a strait-jacket.”

“Our whole nation in a strait-jacket,” he replied, with a smile. “So that is how it strikes you, is it?”

“Well, isn’t it so?” I said. “Your children are sorted out while they are at school, their play is turned into useful employment, their careers are decided for them; hardly any of them rise out of their original class. Then everybody is under the eye of the Time Department, everybody is inspected and looked after from the cradle to the grave. It is almost impossible to commit a real crime or to set up any independent institution. There is, you must admit, a certain want of freedom in your arrangements.”

“But of what people are you speaking?” said Count Krafft. “You seem to have confined your attention to the lower classes. For them, in all countries, something of a strait-jacket is needed surely. Certainly it is for ours. We know our own people. When they are properly drilled and led they do wonders, but left to themselves they have always relapsed into laziness and barbarism, or else have burst out into anarchy and revolutionary fury.”

“But what scope does your system allow for their energies?” I asked. “Every aspect of life seems confined by your meticulous regulations.”

“That is an illusion,” he replied. “You see, we are a highly intellectual people and it is quite natural for us to formulate regulations. Modern life is necessarily complex, and the chief difference between us and other nations is that we recognise the complexity and organise our activities accordingly. We are simply in advance of other nations, that is all. Take a simple thing like Railways. We organised our Railway system to suit our national purposes instead of leaving them to commercial enterprise. Take the Education of the people. The State took charge of it fifty years before other nations recognised its vital importance. Take the question of Public Health; even those States which prate about individual liberty have had to follow in our wake and organise the medical service. Besides, it is only by organising the activities of the lower classes that the State can maintain its supremacy.”

“I see,” I replied, “the strait-jacket is for the lower classes. I thought it was a garment worn by everybody.”

“The expression was yours,” he said, with an indulgent smile. “We certainly do not regard it as a strait-jacket.”

“That is perhaps because the ruling classes do not wear it,” I replied.

“We do not recognise any classes as ruling classes,” he said suavely. “It is an obsolete expression.”

“But I thought you liked to recognise facts and call things by their proper names,” I replied.

“Certainly we do,” he answered. “But which are the ruling classes? The Super-State is the supreme and only ruler in Meccania.”

“Even in a Super-State,” I said, “I should have thought, from what you have said, that some groups of persons really wielded the power of the State.”

“Under the crude organisation of most foreign States that is quite possible,” answered Count Krafft; “but the essence of the Super-State is that, in it, power cannot be exercised without authority, and only these persons are authorised through whom the Super-State chooses to express its will. It places everybody in such a position as enables him to render the greatest service to the State that he is capable of rendering. Consequently no fault can be found, by any class or section, with the power exercised by any other class or section; because they are merely the instruments of the State itself.”

“That sounds a very comfortable doctrine for those who happen to wield the power,” I said. “It leaves no room for any ‘opposition.’”

“The Super-State would not be the Super-State if it contained within it any opposition,” he replied. “You ought to read the speech of Prince Mechow on the Super-State as the final expression of the Meccanian spirit,” he went on. “Foreigners are apt to confuse the Super-State with an Autocracy. It is essentially different. In an autocracy of the crude, old-fashioned type, an exterior power is visible, and your talk of ruling classes would be appropriate there. In the Super-State all the functions are so organised that the whole body politic acts as one man. We educate the will of the component units in such a way that all conflicting impulses are eradicated. After all, that was the ideal of the Catholic Church. Prince Mechow applied the same principle when he reformed our Educational system. A good Meccanian would no more seek to violate the obligations laid upon him by the Super-State than a good Catholic would seek to commit deadly sin.”

“Then there is no room for a Free Press in the Super-State,” I remarked.

He saw my point and replied, “A ‘Free Press,’ as you call it, would be an anachronism. What necessity is there for it? Its function has disappeared. It only existed during a brief historical phase in the earlier development of the modern State. Our great Prince Bludiron was the first to perceive its inconsistency with the line of true development. Prince Mechow absorbed all the functions of the independent professions, and among them those of the journalists, who were always an element of weakness in the State.”

“But what, then, is the object of this complete Unity which, as far as I can make out, the Super-State seems always to be aiming at?” I asked.

“The object?” he replied, almost bored by my pertinacity. “Unity is the law of all organic life. We are simply more advanced in our development than other States, that is all.”

“Then it is not true that all this super-organisation is for the purpose of fostering national power?” I said.

“That is the old argument of the weak against the strong, the poor against the rich, the ignorant against the educated. Every healthy person is a strong person; the rich man is stronger than the poor man; the educated man is stronger than the ignorant. The modern State, even among our neighbours, is infinitely ‘stronger’ than the incoherent political organisms of earlier times. It cannot help itself. Its resources are enormously greater. How can the Super-State help being strong? No State deliberately seeks to weaken itself, or deprive itself of its natural force.” Then, as if tired of the discussion into which our conversation had led us, he said, “But these are all matters about which you will learn much more from my friend the Professor of State Science. I am afraid I have been dishing up one of his old lectures. You will find this liqueur quite palatable.”

We then drifted on to more trivial topics. He said I had spent too long among the petty officials, grubbing about with my Tour No. 4. I ought to see something of better society. Unfortunately it was the dead season just then, and I might have to wait a little time, but there were still some dinners at the University. Some of the professors never went out of Mecco and would be glad to entertain me.

We parted on very good terms. His manner had been friendly, and if he had done little besides expound Meccanian principles he had at any rate not been dictatorial. I wondered whether he really believed in his own plausible theories or whether he had been simply instructing the Foreign Observer.

When I saw Mr. Kwang a day or two afterwards—this time alone—he greeted me cordially and said, “So things are improving?”

“They promise to do so,” I said, “but so far, all that has happened has been a very tedious visit to Director Blobber and an academic discussion with Count Krafft.”

“So you don’t appreciate the honour of dining with an Under-Secretary of the Super-State?” he said. “You have stayed too long in Luniland.”

“I am promised the privilege of seeing something of the best Meccanian Society, but what I was more anxious to see was the worst Meccanian Society.”

“They will take care you don’t,” he answered, laughing.

“But why? In any other country one can associate with peasants or vagabonds or artisans or tradesmen or business men.”

“You ought to know by this time—I am sure it has been explained to you over and over again. You would gather false impressions, and you might contaminate the delicate fruits of Meccanian Culture.”

“That is the theory I have heard ad nauseam. But there is nothing in it.”

“Why not?”

“Because by keeping us apart they arouse the suspicions of both.”

“Oh no, they may arouse your suspicions, but the Meccanian knows that what the State prescribes for him must be for his good. This is the only country where theories are carried into practice. It is a Super-State.”

“And you admire it? You have become a proselyte,” I said jokingly.

“Have you read my books yet?” he asked.

“I saw one for the first time this week,” I said.

“Well?”

“I recognise it as a masterpiece.”

He bowed and smiled. “From the President of the Kiang-su Literary Society that is high praise indeed.”

“I am undecided whether to remain here longer,” I said, “or to return home, perhaps calling for a rest and a change to see my friends in Lunopolis. I should like your advice.”

“Of course that depends upon circumstances. I do not yet understand your difficulty or the circumstances.”

“Well,” I said, “I came here prepared to stay perhaps a year, if I liked the country, with the intention of obtaining general impressions, and some definite information on matters in which I am interested; but every Meccanian I have met is either a Government agent or a bore.”

“What, even Madame Blobber?” he interposed, smiling.

“Even Madame Blobber,” I said. “I am getting tired of it. I try all sorts of means to gratify my perfectly innocent curiosity, and am baffled every time. Now I am promised a sight of high Society, but I expect they will show me what they want me to see and nothing they don’t want me to see.”

“Why should they show you what they don’t want you to see?” he laughed.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” I said.

“I have had the virtue of patience,” he said, “and patience has been rewarded. I, too, am going home before long. I have got what I want.”

He made the signal that bound me to absolute secrecy, and told me what his plans were. When I said that he ran a risk of being victimised he shook his head. “I am not afraid,” he said. “By the time I reach home, every Meccanian agent in China will have been quietly deported. And they will not come back again. We are not a Super-State, but our country is not Idiotica.”

“And in the meantime,” I said, “suppose I stay here another month or so, what do you advise me to do?”

“Oh, just amuse yourself as well as you can,” he said.

“Amuse myself! In Meccania?”

“Yes; it is not worth while trying now to do anything else. You will find out nothing new—nothing that I have not already found out. It takes ten years to penetrate beneath the surface here, even with my methods,” he said. “But I have got what I want.”

“And how am I to amuse myself?”

“Accept all the invitations you get, keep your ears open and use your own considerable powers of reflection. By way of relief, come and talk to me whenever you want.”

I followed Sz-ma-Kwang’s advice: I gave up all thought of investigating either Meccanian Politics, or ‘social problems,’ or anything of the kind. I thought I should probably get better information at second hand from Mr. Kwang than I could get at first hand for myself, in the short time that I was prepared to stay, and I am satisfied now that I decided rightly.... I saw Lickrod almost daily, and went with him to a number of places, museums, the great library, industrial exhibitions, manufactories and so forth. We spent a day or two looking at examples of Meccanian architecture, which was more interesting from the engineering point of view than from the artistic. I began to receive invitations to several houses, chiefly of high officials in the Civil Service and one or two members of the higher bourgeoisie.

In the meantime I had some interesting conversation with my friends, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Villele, as we sat in the garden after dinner. I had never yet asked Mr. Johnson why he was pursuing what I could not help thinking was the distasteful study of Meccanian Pedagogics, but as Lickrod had recommended me to talk to Mr. Johnson about Meccanian education the question came up naturally. I put it to him quite frankly.

“You are what I should describe as an Anti-Meccanian by temperament,” I said, “and it seems very odd that you should be studying Meccanian Pedagogics of all things in the world.”

“It is because I am an Anti-Meccanian, as you put it, that I am doing so,” he replied. “You see in Luniland we never do things thoroughly—thank God!—and we have no pedagogical system. But every now and then a sort of movement arises in favour of some reform or other. For a long time Meccanian education was out of court; people would hear of nothing that savoured of Meccania, good or bad. Then there was a revival of interest, and societies were started to promote what they called Education on a scientific basis—by which they meant, not the study of science, but Meccanian education. As Professor of Education in one of our smaller Universities I was obliged to take some line or other, and the more I studied Meccanian Education from books, the less I liked it. So I came to equip myself with a better knowledge of the whole thing than the cranks who have taken it up.”

“I suppose you find some things worth copying,” I suggested, “in a field so wide, especially seeing that they have applied psychological science to methods of study?”

“Oh yes, there are certain pedagogical tricks and dodges that are decidedly clever. In fact, if the human race were a race of clever insects, the Meccanian system of education would be almost perfect. The pupils store up knowledge as bees store honey, and they learn to perform their functions, as members of an organisation, with wonderful accuracy. I cannot help thinking sometimes that Meccania is a society of clever insects.”

“Exactly,” struck in Mr. Villele. “There are the soldier ants, and the slave ants, and the official ants, and the egg-producing ants. We ought to call Meccania the Super-Insect-State, eh?”

“Yes; the land of the Super-Insects,” said Johnson. “No person in Meccania, certainly no child, is ever looked upon as an ‘end in itself’; he is simply one of a community of ants.”

“Of course,” I said, “to be quite fair, we cannot consider anybody strictly as an end in himself, even in Luniland.”

“Theoretically that is so,” replied Johnson, “but in practice it makes all the difference in the world whether you regard a man as an individual soul, or as a cell in an organism or a wheel in a machine.”

“Why do you Lunilanders and Francarians, if I may ask such a large question, allow yourselves to be influenced at all by what is done in Meccania? There is so little intercourse between the countries that it hardly seems worth while having any at all,” I said.

“Because in both countries there are still many people who regard the Meccanians not as Super-Insects, but as human beings,” answered Johnson. “And there is always, too, the ultimate possibility of conflict. If they were on another planet it would not matter, providing they could invent no means of communicating with us. In itself Meccanian education is of little interest, except, of course, as education in the insect world might be interesting, or perhaps as a branch of pedagogical pathology or psychological pathology.”

“In effect,” interrupted Mr. Villele, “it all comes back to what Mr. Johnson was saying a few nights ago, that the key to the whole polity of Meccania is military power. Meccanian education is merely a means to that end, just as the Time Department, and every other institution—and the absence of certain other institutions like the Press, for example—is. The Super-State is the grand instrument of Militarism.”

“Is it not possible,” I said, “that the real key to the Super-State is the desire of the ruling classes to keep themselves in power?”

“But the two things go together,” answered Villele. “The Meccanian maxim is that ‘The State must be strong within in order to be strong without.’”

“And is not that true doctrine?” I said, wondering how they would answer the argument.

“To a certain extent,” answered Johnson cautiously. “But where are their enemies? Why should they want all this ‘Super-Strength’?”

“They say they are surrounded by unfriendly nations,” I replied.

“So they are,” answered Villele, “but they have done their best to make them unfriendly. If you knock a man down, and trample on him, and rob him into the bargain, you can hardly expect him to be a friendly neighbour next day.”

“We started by talking about education,” I remarked, “but we have very soon got into a discussion about Militarism—somehow we seem to get to that no matter what point we start from.”

“And with very good reason,” said Villele. “There used to be a saying that all roads lead to Rome. In Meccania all roads lead to Militarism. You who are not faced by the problem it presents may regard it as an obsession, but a man who refuses to admit the plainest evidence is also the victim of an obsession.”

“And you think the evidence is unmistakable?” I said.

“For what purpose does the Meccanian Parliament—if it can be called a Parliament—surrender its control over taxation? For what purpose does the Government conceal its expenditure upon army and navy? For what purpose does it destroy the freedom of the Press, and freedom of speech? For what purpose does the Government keep every person under supervision? For what purpose does it control all production?”

“I cannot answer these questions,” I said; “but what evidence is there that the Meccanian system of education is designed as part of the scheme of Militarism?”

“The evidence is abundant,” answered Johnson, “but it is not so plain as to be unmistakable. If you see one of our elaborate pieces of modern machinery, a printing-machine or a spinning-machine, you will find that it contains a thousand separate contrivances, and unless you are an expert you will not be able to perceive that every part is absolutely necessary to the performance of the simple function of printing or spinning. Yet that is the fact. It is just the same with the Meccanian educational machine. Its chief purpose, according to the Meccanian theory, is to enable the citizen—or, as Villele and I might say, the Super-Insect—to perform his functions as a member of the Super-Insect community. But the chief end of the Super-Insect State is Power. The Meccanians say so themselves. Anyhow, we can easily see for ourselves that their system of education fits in exactly with Militarism. It makes men efficient for the purposes required of them by the Super-State; it makes them not only docile and obedient, but actively devoted to the interests, not of themselves individually, but of what they are taught to regard as something more important, namely, the Super-State; it fosters the superstition which makes possible such an incredible custom as Villele has told you of; it keeps them ignorant of all other ideals of civilisation.”

“All that may be true,” I replied. “It may very well be that the system of education does favour Militarism, but it may not have been deliberately designed to that end. It has been put to me,” I added, “that all this elaborate organisation, including education, is part of the inevitable tendency of things in the modern world, and that the Meccanians are only doing a little in advance of other people what they will all do sooner or later.”

“That won’t do at all,” interposed Villele. “They cannot have it both ways. What becomes of the genius of Prince Mechow if it is all an inevitable tendency? They tell us other nations are not clever enough, or not far-seeing enough, or not strong-willed enough, to produce such a system. These reforms had to be introduced in the teeth of opposition. Other nations have not adopted them and will not adopt them except under the pressure of fear. It is Militarism alone that is strong enough to impose such a system.”

“But,” said I, “I find it difficult to believe that any civilisation, even Meccanian, can be really the result of the domination of a single idea. Not even the communities of the ancient world were so simple in their principles.”

“That fact tells in favour of our contention,” answered Villele.

“How so?” I said.

“Why, you admit the natural tendency of all civilised peoples towards diversity of aims. The more highly developed, the more diversified. If, therefore, you find a people becoming less diversified, subordinating all individual wills to the will of the State, you must suspect some extraordinary force. You would not deny the fact that individual liberty has been suppressed?”

“No,” I said, “I do not deny that.”

“But you think the Super-State has such an interest in the tender plant of the individual souls of its children, their moral and spiritual and physical life, that it is merely a meticulous grandmother trying to prepare them all for a better world, eh?”

I laughed.

“No, that won’t do. Only two things are strong enough to suppress the spirit of liberty: one is superstition calling itself religion; the other is Militarism.”

“If it were less well done,” resumed Johnson, “it would be easier to detect. But it is diabolically well done. Who but the Meccanians would think it worth while to control the whole teaching of history for the sake of cultivating Militarism? In most countries anybody may write history, although very few people read it. Here only the official historians may write: only the books prescribed by the State may be read. And all the people while they are at school and college must read it. In this way they create a powerful tradition. One need not laugh at the idea of State historians. They have done their work too well for that. Their falsification of history is not a clumsy affair of inventing fairy tales. It is scientific falsification. They utilise every fact that can tell against, or discredit, other nations, and every fact about their own people which can raise their national self-esteem. The method is not new, for you may say that all historians are biased. But in other countries the bias of one historian is counterbalanced by the bias of others. The method is not new but the system is. As an example, take their treatment of a well-known Luniland statesman of the beginning of the last century—and this is a fairly harmless instance. He was undoubtedly a single-minded, public-spirited man, a patriot who was also a good European, for he did as much as any one man to save Europe from a military tyranny. But he shared many of the current ideas of his age and lived according to its customs. In Meccanian history all we are told of him is that he drank heavily, gambled, persecuted ignorant and misguided labourers, bribed the people’s representatives, enriched capitalists and landlords by his fiscal system, and displayed his ignorance of finance by inventing a fallacious Sinking Fund that any schoolboy could see through.”

“Mr. Johnson is putting the case much too mildly,” interposed Villele. “There are in the ‘reports’ issued by the Government on all sorts of matters, but particularly with regard to foreign affairs, falsifications of fact of the most barefaced character. Now the writers of the school and college histories quote very extensively from these official reports, implying always that the statements are true. Further than this, you know, but not perhaps as well as we do, that in countries where speech is free and the Press is free there are any number of libellous writers who vilify their opponents in a shameless fashion. In Luniland in particular, if my friend will pardon my saying so, there are enthusiasts for some particular cause who have no sense whatever of proportion. For instance, to hear some of the so-called Temperance advocates you would imagine that the Lunilanders were a nation of drunkards, wife-beaters, seducers, abandoned wretches of every kind. To listen to their Socialist fanatics you would imagine that every working man was a down-trodden slave. To listen to their anti-vivisectionists you would imagine that the whole medical profession spent its leisure in the sport of torturing animals. To listen to some of the priests you would think the whole nation was sunk in vice. To listen to the anti-priests you would think the priests were a tribe of grasping hypocrites, and so on and so on. Now you will find Meccanian histories, and works on the social and political life of foreign nations, full of quotations from such writers.”

“As I said at the outset,” remarked Johnson, “this may seem a little thing in itself, but it is symptomatic and characteristic. Look at an entirely different aspect of the system. The whole teaching profession is honeycombed with sycophancy. Every teacher is a spy upon every other. Every one tries to show his zeal, and gain some promotion, by a display of the Meccanian spirit. As you know, there are no private schools. There is not a single independent teacher in the whole country. It is in the Universities even more than in the schools that sycophancy runs riot.”

“That may be perfectly true,” I said, “but would you not get this disease of sycophancy wherever you have a bureaucracy, quite apart from Militarism? Suppose there were no army at all, but suppose that the State were the sole employer and controller of every person and thing, you might still have all the petty tyranny and sycophancy that you describe.”

“But there is a difference,” said Johnson. “Under a mere bureaucracy it is still possible for the large groups of workers to combine, and very effectually, to safeguard their interests; especially if at the same time there is a real parliamentary system. Indeed, many years ago one of the strongest arguments brought forward in Luniland against any large extension of State employment was that the employees, through their trade combinations, would be able to exert political pressure, and rather exploit the State than be exploited by it. No, I maintain that a military autocracy without a bureaucracy may be brutal and tyrannical, in a spasmodic sort of way; but it is loose-jointed and clumsy: a bureaucracy apart from a military control of the State may be meddlesome and irritating; but it is only when you get the two combined that the people are bound hand and foot. Anyhow, I cannot conceive of the whole teaching profession, including the highest as well as the lowest branches, being so completely enslaved as it is here, without there being a driving power at the back of the bureaucratic machine, such as only Militarism can supply in our times—for religion is out of the question.”

“Well, now, is there any other sort of evidence,” I said, “that the educational system is inspired by Militarism? So far the case is ‘not proven.’”

“The cultivation of ‘the Meccanian spirit,’ which is one of the prime aims of all the teaching, points at any rate in the same direction.”

“But the Meccanian spirit is only another name for patriotism, is it not?” I said.

“Your scepticism,” remarked Villele, “would almost make one suppose you were becoming a convert to Meccanianism.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I have tried to get firsthand information on these matters and I have failed. Here I am, listening to you who are avowedly, if I may say so in your presence, anti-Meccanians.” They both nodded assent. “Would it not be foolish of me to accept your views without at any rate sifting the evidence as fully as I am able? It has this advantage, I shall be much more likely to become convinced of the correctness of your opinions if I find that you meet the hypothetical objections I raise than if I merely listen to your views.”

“The Meccanian spirit is another name for patriotism,” said Johnson; “but it is Meccanian patriotism. Patriotism is not a substitute for Ethics in the rest of Europe, nor was it in Meccania two centuries ago. Absolute obedience to the State is definitely inculcated here. No form of resistance is possible. Resistance is never dreamt of; the Meccanian spirit implies active co-operation with the Super-State, not passive obedience only but reverence and devotion. And remember that the Super-State when you probe under the surface is the Second Class, the Military Caste.”

“But do not all States inculcate obedience to themselves?” I said.

“No,” replied Johnson bluntly. “They may inculcate obedience to the laws for the time being; it is only Churches claiming Divine inspiration that arrogate to themselves infallibility, and demand unconditional obedience. In the rest of Europe the State is one of the organs—a most necessary and important organ—of the community: here, the State or the Super-State is the Divinity in which society lives and moves and has its being. It is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent.”

“Admitting all you say about the deliberate policy of the Super-State,” I answered, “is it not strange that a hundred millions of people submit themselves to it, and that even outside Meccania there are many advocates of Meccanian principles?”

“Tyrannies have flourished in the world in every age,” replied Johnson, “because there is something even worse than Tyranny. To escape a plague a man will take refuge in a prison. Anarchy, such as that which broke out in Idiotica some fifty years ago, was a godsend to the rulers of Meccania. They persuaded the public that there was a choice only between the Super-State and Anarchy or Bolshevism as it was then called. We know that is false. Liberty may be attacked by an open enemy or by a secret and loathsome disease; but that is no reason for surrendering either to the one or the other.”